Haha, I found the answer in a comment of an article on the Internet:
http://marketingpractice.blogspot.com/2006/08/alpenliebe-from-alps.htmlWow, I know that this was posted a looooooong long time ago, but the question popped up in my head the other day while I was eating an Alpenliebe sweet - why is this brand name used in India? And then I came upon your blog.
Just to clarify, 'Alpenliebe' is a combination of two German words - alpen and liebe.
-die Alpen (pl.noun.fem) means the alps. Its singular form is 'die Alpe'.-die Liebe (s.noun.fem) means love. Its plural form is 'die Lieben'.So basically the name means Alpine love. ^_^
34% of the European population speak fluent German(second only to 49% English speakers) and around 23% have it as their native language, the highest percentage out of all other European languages (stand: 2001). So roughly we can guess that 50% of the population would know what 'liebe' means, it being a common word and all. And as for the 'alpen' part, they have a common root word so it would sound mostly the same in all the major European languages: Alps, Alpes, Alpi, Alpen, Alperna, Alperne, Alpit, Álpeis
I do agree with you in that the word would seem meaningless and hard to pronounce to native Indians, but in all fairness, Alpenliebe brand of sweets was first launched in Italy in 1984. That's 11(almost) years before it came to India(Dec 1995), so it wouldn't really make any sense to change the brand name just because it's a different country.
-source: I'm a German Language diploma student ^_^
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